The love of Christ

We know love by this, that Christ laid down his life for us – and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. 1 The love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them. 2

Live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. 3 Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her so as to present the church to himself in splendour, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind – yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish. No one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, because we are members of his body. 4

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 5

I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 6

 

1 1Jn 3.16 2 2Cor 5.14-15 3 Eph 5.2 4 Eph 5.25-30 5 Rom 8.35-39 6 Eph 3.18-19